'The Founding Fish'
John McPhee's book is a savory tale about a savory fish
that will enchant all who enjoy getting closer to nature
By James A. Swan, Ph.D.While fishing the Kenai River in Alaska for those humongous king salmon, a man in a nearby boat hooked a big chrome-sided lunker that must have gone 60 pounds. Excited, he stood up to play it.
As the fish finally approached the boat it suddenly raced off on a run, pulling the unsuspecting angler so terribly off-balance that he fell headfirst into the icy water. The water was deep and the current fast. Nonetheless, the angler surfaced holding his rod. His guide quickly maneuvered the boat alongside him, and the guide and another person managed to pull in the drenched and not exactly thin angler, who was still playing the fish!
Believe it or not, the fisherman landed that salmon, receiving a well-deserved round of applause and cheers from the occupants in the 20 or so other boats in sight.
A mysterious chemistry exists between a fisherman and fish. Some anglers pursue anything with fins. Others hone in on a single species, holding distain for other fish and/or fishermen without the same calling.
In some cases the attraction to a species is simply due to proximity or money. Tuna fishing requires a seagoing boat and expensive tackle. A mess of perch, bullheads and bluegills can be caught with a cane pole, a few feet of line and a hook.
But mundane explanations are not adequate to describe many fishermen's tastes and motivations.
Pulitzer Prize-winning writer John McPhee has an obsession for fishing for American shad, which has possessed him for decades.
McPhee's 26th book, "The Founding Fish," (Farrar, Straus and Giroux; $25) begins on the Delaware River, with the author anchored in a johnboat casting a self-made chartreuse shad dart tied on a No. 2 hook as twilight approaches.
A shad strikes. It feels very heavy, suggesting that it is a huge female ripe with tasty roe.
"It's a bad idea to horse a shad," McPhee advises, because shad have paper-thin mouths. So, he plays the fish gently, fantasizing about what he may have hooked — carp, trout, striped bass, or even a sturgeon — as the fish stubbornly refuses to come in or surface and jump as shad are known to do.
Two hours and 35 minutes later, in darkness, with a crowd cheering from a nearby bridge, he finally lands a 4¾-pound roe shad that was hooked in an unusual way, making it feel like a much bigger fish.
McPhee spins this initial tale in 22 pages, setting the stage for a 368-page tome on shad, shad fishing, a history of shad fishing, shad fishermen, scientists who study shad, shad rivers, dams on shad rivers, tearing down dams on shad rivers, pollution, how to make shad flies and clean shad, and recipes for shad.
The book moves along with the slow, steady pulse of a good shad river, providing much food for thought as well as entertainment.
Such an exhaustive study of a species by itself makes for a valuable book, especially when told by a master storyteller, which McPhee surely is.
However, along the course of this watery tale, McPhee tosses in some little known and fascinating tidbits about the shad's influence on American history. For example:
This is a typical McPhee book, filled with engaging stories and fascinating facts that paint a portrait of intimacy between man and nature.
And in between strikes, when a fisherman's mind wanders to deeper pools of thought, McPhee also explores some philosophy, taking some well-placed shots at those whose attitudes may differ from his.
As might be expected, McPhee harpoons PETA (which opposes fishing as "the cruelest form of hunting") with a simple sentiment: "I catch to eat, and with that purpose am not troubled by killing."
In the course of questioning biologists about whether fish feel pain when hooked, McPhee concludes they probably do feel something.
But his line of inquiry then leads to an unexpected criticism of some fishermen. Shad are bony fish that pound for pound fight better than nearly any other fish. The combination of their fighting spirit and bony flesh results in many anglers simply releasing what shad they catch and keeping score instead.
Citing research that finds that the some 65,000 recreational shad fishermen in New Jersey release four out of five of the shad they catch, McPhee reports that fishery biologists say that as many as half of these fish may die. This leads McPhee to challenge the ethics of catch-and release shad fishing:
Certain catch-and-release types speak of 'meat fishermen' in the same tone that fly fishermen use for those who fish with worms. I'm a meat fisherman. I think it's immoral not to eat a fish you jerk around the river with a steel barb through its mouth. I see no other justification for doing so.
This is the kind of book that moves you to action.
I plan to tie up some shad darts and try some of McPhee's instructions — as well as his recipes suggesting that, with a little care, a fish that some say has "a porcupine within" can be made to live up to its Latin name, Alosa sapidissima, which means "most savory."
James Swan — who has appeared in more than a dozen feature films, including "Murder in the First" and "Star Trek: First Contact," as well as the television series "Nash Bridges," "Midnight Caller" and "Modern Marvels" — is the author of the book "In Defense of Hunting." Click to purchase a copy. To learn more about Swan, visit his Web site.
